


wretched will

by barbariccia



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Intercrural Sex, Letters, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:21:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27885931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barbariccia/pseuds/barbariccia
Summary: Know that all I do, I do for thee.Loose thy lips and speak thy mind. Thou shalt feel all the better for it.
Relationships: Urianger Augurelt/Thancred Waters
Comments: 12
Kudos: 60





	wretched will

_Dearest Moenbryda_.

The only indication that Il Mheg now toils under the banner of night is the chill that wends through the faerie kingdom, a monster testing every lock, every bolt, seeking, searching, scouting. ‘Tis still bright, as ever it seems it shall be on Norvrandt now, but lo: the curtains are drawn, and the candles snuffed out. It is as though no Calamity awaits them on the horizon, and all the world is set to rights.

_Few are the days where thou doth not occupy my mind. It has been years, yea, this I know, since last I beheld thy face, and yet I find I can recall it with perfect clarity. Thine departure is but a misremembered thing, I tell myself: should I look to the next room, there thou wilt be._

_I miss thee._

“What time is it?”

“Ere I looked, the chronometer worked well enough.”

“I’m not asking the chronometer. I’m asking _you_.”

Laughter, quiet despite its mirth. “Time to retire, I shouldst think. Come, then - to bed, if thy business is concluded.”

_Ofttimes I find myself waking in the dead of night, clutching mine breast with the pain. ‘Tis folly, even I know this to be true: for me it hath been years, time enough for the hurt to have healed. Others I know have managed their agonies with more grace than I, and in less time. Waking in the dark will not change what hath been done… and yet in the quiet hours I think of thee, and ache full strong enough to call forth tears, though I know thou wouldst laugh to hear mine admission. As I said before, so saith I now: none but thee can satisfy this need._

“Shut the door, would you? I don’t want to disturb Minfilia.”

_Prithee, think not unkindly of me. Mine feet lead me ever onwards, as I know thou wouldst wish for - and though grief is my shadow and sorrow my companion, I shalt not waste what time thou didst give us. Stay thy laughter: I can hear thee even now, making merry. ‘Tis born only of being unable to forget thee - not that I have any intention of such sacrilege. However…_

“You’re thinking about her.”

It’s not a question. Urianger’s mood is easy enough to read. Ever has been, in truth. Couched though he might be in the languages of eras long gone and hidden by hood and goggles both, his entire _self_ lends itself far too well to outward expression; a spymaster’s dream. When he’s worked up, the agitation rolls off him like the angry sea; when he’s joyous, the room lights up with him.

Ashamed, as he is now, he turns inward, away from the accusation as though it is an attack.

“My apologies,” he says, for he never denies when his misdeeds are brought to light - if, indeed, they can even be called that. Thancred, not one to let such things sit untouched, stills.

“Don’t,” he says gently, and presses a single kiss to the knee over his shoulder. Long-legged as he is, Urianger excels in laying back and pressing his thighs together to be fucked painlessly. “D’you want me to stop?”

It wouldn’t be the first time. Ever mindful of his feelings, Thancred gives him just as much space as he wants, never straying too far lest he lose his path. With only a memory of the stars to guide his steps, it seems a fair worry, these days.

_Despite his best efforts, Thancred is a good man. Had there been more time to drag out his every secret, thou wouldst have made a good go of it. Yes, my dearest, I remember the worst of thee, too - every terrible habit, outshone as they are by thy smile, the softness of thy hair, the gentle touch of thine fingertips._

_I daresay he may even have won thine approval, whether to stand on his own two legs or be invited to share our bed - but now shares only mine. He, too, hath struggled with loss - as hath we all - and it is such misery that drew us together._

“No. Not if thou art willing to keep - _ah-_ ”

Thancred keeps him tethered with a gentle, if calloused, hand on his cock, and he falls back into the pillows with a gasp. For all his verbiage, he’s quiet when they join together like this.

_I wonder, when I lay with him - and I pray thou canst forgive me for doing so - if he wonders how best to punish me. T’would be well within his rights to hold all I have done and more against me: were it not for mine intervening hand, the Antecedent may well never have left us, and our Oracle would not have known such hardships as she has. So much pain I have wrought with mine hands, and yet when I seek in his eyes the answers I see no hatred, no bitterness but that toward his own failings. To me he is gracious, and kind, and gentle, and naught else. Mayhap he means to kill me with kindness._

If nothing else, the man is focused in all he does. He laughs, and he drinks, and he spies better than any of them could dare to dream - indeed, ‘tis only by Thancred’s continued work that they have come as far as they have - but therein lies his greatest weakness, too. Had it not been the selfsame behaviour that led to an Ascian in their midst? No, an unkindness: ‘twas _grief_ and his focus that opened the doors to Lahabrea. It has been years since the Calamity - for them, a decade - and not once has he allowed himself a respite… except in this.

And if that terrible path is trod again, why…

 _I’truth I know not which of us began. Laugh all thou wilt, for this memory of mine was never perfect. All I know is that one day we were acquaintances - I hesitate to say_ friends _, for I hold the Scions at comfortable range, but so too doth_ colleagues _sound too_ im _personal - and the next we were abed._

“Stop,” Urianger gasps. “Stop, I beg of thee-”

Dutiful Thancred stops.

Full glad is Urianger for the forced darkness of the room, for he does not think he could bear to see the situation illuminated by the harsh Light. The silence is so thick it feels almost suffocating; his body is so hot he feels almost ill. No doubt he looks ridiculous, flushed from ear-tips down to his chest, pre-ejaculate connecting his navel to his cock loosely, mouth open, hair tousled, eyes blown wide and dark.

Thancred does not laugh.

He does not laugh, despite the scene laid out before him. Instead he stretches - and _he_ does not look ridiculous, no matter the light or lack thereof, _he_ looks at home in his skin, comfortable in his nudity, with their precarious position. Urianger’s ankles are still crossed over his shoulder, and the proof of his arousal is firmly at home between his thighs.

“If I did something wrong,” he starts, slowly, carefully.

_Then once more, and once again, until all the days and nights blended together as one, and we became wrapped up in something for which I hath no name. If it is anything other than punishment, he holdeth the answer out of reach._

_Perhaps selfishly, I wish to know._

“Nay,” says Urianger, and wishes to hide his eyes and body both. He has not enough hands to cover himself with in full, and as he fidgets Thancred releases his legs. His fingers pluck at the sheets futilely, but it does not move from beneath them - at least, not until Thancred shifts his weight. Still bare, Urianger is at least not bare _d_ , and hangs his head as he hides his shame away.

_I am as foolish now as ever I was during our time at the Academy, as unpractised in the way of people as thou wert not, as I think I shall ever continue to be. How I wish thou wert here, to tell me what is and is not true, what is and is not worth wasting my time worrying over. As thou well knoweth, no orator am I._

_But so too do I know that I canst not simply sit and wait for the answers to be delivered unto me. As much as it pains me to admit, even privately, thou art not returning to me. And so I must forge mine own path, overseen by no other, unless thou watcheth o’er me from wheresoever good souls go._

Bereft of goggles and hood and veil, Urianger is defenceless, and cannot look him in the eye. That, more than anything else in this moment, is a certain impossibility.

“... We ought to… talk.”

“Probably.”

The weight around them does not abate despite Thancred’s airy response; the silence presses in, closer than any lover good. Urianger takes a breath, and then another, and once more for courage.

“I- I still, and hath always and _shalt_ always- l-l-”

Another breath.

“... love Moenbryda.”

“Well, I knew _that_.”

A fair point: following that tragedy, Thancred alone had sought him out to offer what condolences he could, brief though that visit had been, and he _had_ been affected. He’s heard the jests: he is unknowable, a living statue sat at the furthest reach of whatever hideaway the Scions have made their home, a slave only to the heavy tomes. Not so: he is a man with a heart, who bleeds and eats and weeps. Thancred alone had seen that, so many years prior.

“Doth it not-”

When Thancred lifts a hand for peace, Urianger gives it to him easy enough. “You’re about to ask me whether your feelings for her bother me. And then, when I tell you they don’t, you’ll demand the _why_ of it. And when I explain, you’ll hold yourself to account for some other number of personal grievances you have with yourself or yours truly. That, or you simply won’t believe me. Either way, you’ll retort accordingly, and lash out, and weep, and so on and so forth until you’ve convinced yourself the world is coming down about your ears, and not know how to do something as simple as breathing.”

All Urianger can do is stare, and he snorts. “Oh, come. Is it so unthinkable that I, too, have broken down in the past?”

Realisation unfurls in his gut so rapidly he swears he can taste bile. “Minfilia-”

“Is asleep,” Thancred cuts in, “... but yes, if you _must_ know. After her… After Ascilia’s disappearance. Mayhap once or twice in the wake of the reclamation of Ala Mhigo. Seven hells, after that Ascian wore me-”

He stops himself in favour of taking a deep breath and holding it for one, two seconds. When he exhales, his breath is slow and steady. Thancred is in control of himself, but at what cost? It seems a poor consolation for so much heartbreak. “So I know how it feels,” he continues, voice steady. “Talking is better than weeping, if you don’t already know, though the two often go hand in hand.”

_Know that I intend to speak with him. Difficult though the task may be, and foolish and unpractised in these things am I, but the strength of thy memory is what gets me through every wretched day. When all else is lost, I think of thee. When the Light is too strong to see, ‘tis thy shade that falls upon me, who urges me on. I know thou wilt ever watch mine back when I must needs focus on going forward, and if I should stumble in so doing, ‘twill be thee who guides my steps ever on._

“What is this? What _are_ we?”

The question tumbles from him before he can give it proper thought and weight, and going by Thancred’s expression, it is not at all what he expected. “Uh-”

“Thou hath never spoken thy mind as to what this might be between us, and wary of boundaries, I hath not wondered aloud. Perhaps selfishly, I have shied away from asking, in fear that it would put an end to whatever this _is_ . Know that- that no matter the answer, I can and will and _must_ work with thee going forth, for this world’s predicament - and our own! - is more important than what secrets bedfellows may share, but I wish- I wish to know.”

By the end he’s breathing hard, unaccustomed to asking so forcefully, and in asking for himself, at that. Thancred lets him take a moment to tremble, and breathe.

“That’s fair. Let me ask you a question in return - what do _you_ think this is?”

Urianger scoffs. “I am not so fool as to have not noticed the way thine bed hath been shared with strangers before. If I am to be a momentary diversion, simply tell me how long this moment wilt last _for_. If thou art doing this to hurt me-”

“Enough,” says Thancred firmly, and that is that. “Why would I take you to bed if I wanted to hurt-? Preposterous.” He shakes his head, and Urianger tries to object, but he holds his hand up for peace once again. “If I wanted to hurt you, taking you to bed wouldn’t have been my first choice. I _promise_ you, I’ve never needed to be naked to hurt anyone before. I’m confused, Urianger. Explain.”

_I expect to stumble, and a great many times, at that. But failure cannot halt my progress. That is not what thou wouldst want - nor would Master Louisoix, or knowledgable Papalymo, or any other of the bright minds we have lost along the way._

“Urianger,” says Thancred, when he says nothing at all, “Do you think I’ve been sleeping with you to torment you in some manner? For - for _what?_ You’ve done nothing to-”

“I have done _plenty_ ,” Urianger all but cries, and forgets to hold the linens tight against his body in his agitation. “It was by _my hand_ that the Antecedent left our world, as I was guided down mine course by an Ascian, no less! If for nothing else - and do not think that mine inaction under the Scions’ banner does not haunt me, for full well I know I hold not a candle to the accomplishments to the rest of thee - thou shouldst despise me for that!”

He turns his face away before he reaches the end, afraid of what he might find should he face this head-on, and the silence seems like to sneak between them once again and strangle him for daring disturb it.

“But I don’t,” says Thancred, as though oblivious to the way the room wishes for quiet.

“ _Why_ -”

That Twelve-damned hand, stopping him in his tracks before he can demand answers once again. Furious, Urianger’s gaze falls on his partner as though he means to strike him down with but a look - and finds him weary but patient. “Did I not say this was how it was going to go? Does it matter what I say? You’ll blame yourself all the same.” He reaches out, hesitant, as though Urianger might recoil or slap his hand away, and the first touch of bare skin on bare skin, fingertips to cheek, gentle as a feather, sees Urianger gasp as though he’s been bereft of air the whole night. His heart beats so hard he almost feels dizzy. “I don’t hate you, Urianger. Maybe you don’t understand the _why_ of it, but I don’t. Nothing you’ve done has been wrought by your hand alone, and you’ve not been - dammit, _look_ at me.”

When he does, Thancred almost seems to struggle with words for a moment. “... Ugh, this - too often have _I_ been afraid of hurting _you_ , you fool.” At Urianger’s naked surprise: “Come, now, is that so hard to believe? For me to think that you might look at me and see in me the shadow of a friend and nothing more? You love Moenbryda, and you always will,” before he can be interrupted, his fingers lead his hand onward, til he cups his cheek so gently it almost aches. “And I’ll not hold that against you, not now, not ever. But I, too-”

Here he falters, and, seeming to not know what to say, he wets his lips and takes a breath before forging on. “... I, too, am here.”

_‘Tis folly to ask of thee to watch over me, knowing that thou hath returned to the Lifestream, but the lies we tell ourselves are what urges us ever onward. Thusly do I not ask, but instead beg - and if an old fool might ask another favour, make not fun of me and my request - that thou guideth my steps, wheresoever they may lead me, and know that all I do, I do for thee._

“Here,” echoes Urianger, confused. He can feel the prickle of sweat where Thancred’s fingers rest against his skin, gentle in a manner he is certain he does not deserve.

Whether he deserves it or no, the touch remains. “Here,” Thancred murmurs, and he is looking beyond the myriad mistakes that make up the man before him. “With you. If you’ll have me.”

~~_Your friend, forever and always_ ~~

_With all my love._

_Urianger_


End file.
